


I See Mist-Covered Mountains

by Lucky107



Series: A Red, Red Rose [12]
Category: Hell on Wheels (TV)
Genre: 19th Century, Amputation, Canon Divergence, Companionship, Crimes & Criminals, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Graphic Description, Isolation, Nurse - Freeform, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 01:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10293968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: For better or worse, Bonnie stuck by him.[Season 3]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chì Mi Na Mòrbheanna - The Rankin Family - 1989

Just as the sun sets on Hell on Wheels, the railroad employees scatter into the street to retire to their favourite watering hole.  Bonnie Mae is counted among them as she carefully picks her way through the mud in a beeline for the sick tent.

The tent is empty on her arrival, save a single flickering lantern, so she sees herself in without incident.

Two supply checks is the norm for Bonnie: once in the morning and once again at night.  Tonight, however, her hands are trembling with fear as she unlocks the medicinal cabinet.

Many of the raw herbs and infusions here are of her own making; she's become familiar with the local wildlife over the duration of her time with the railroad and her friendship with Eva Toole.  The rest are narcotics ordered in by Cullen Bohannon, sparingly used in favour of natural options on account of Bonnie Mae's superstitions.

Arsenicals, cocaine, heroin, morphine, opium—there's more than a hundred dollars' worth of medication here.  After only a brief deliberation about the morality of what she's come for, she helps herself to the contents of the cabinet.

Only once the shelves are bare does she lock up and blow out the lantern, seeing herself out and back to her quarters in haste.

 

"Here," Bonnie says, pressing a weighted cloth sack into Sean's hands.  He peers inside and finds himself face-to-face with half of the sick tent's supply.  "No sense puttin' all our eggs in one basket, as they say."

"You _stole_ this?"  Sean asks, skeptical.

"That's right."

Emptying the medical tent and stealing goods from the kitchen feels like the wrong way to start off on the right foot, and Bonnie's hardline responses aren't helping.  But Sean knows it's not easy on her to leave the camp so ill-prepared in the event of an emergency, either—it's just too late to get cold feet.

They bring no spare changes of clothes or other personal artifacts with them.  Should anything happen out there, they need to be able to _move_.  The stolen medical supplies are their only leg-up on the Nebraska wilderness, and even then it's a long shot.

At last Bonnie drapes a couple of sheets and a quilt over her arm before hefting her share of the medicine.  "Let's get them horses."

\- - -

Night fades into dawn and dawn welcomes the day over the Nebraska plains.

Despite the advantageous head start, the pair can't stop to rest; by now the entire camp is aware of their crimes and someone, if not Cullen Bohannon himself, has been sent out in search of the railroad's missing property.  The entire medical supply and two horses, among other small necessities, won't be written off so easily.

For three hours they follow, to the best of their knowledge, what Sean remembers of Cullen's map to San Francisco.  If Mr. Bohannon had even half a brain, however, he would be taking the exact same route because he knows Sean's seen those maps.

It's Bonnie who suggests they ride north in search of Chimney Rock, a familiar landmark on the California and Oregon trails.

 _Even if they're Mormon_ , she reasoned at the break of dawn.  _A traveller's a traveller an' we need all the help we's can get._

First up, though, is that they owe the poor horses a break.

Bonnie Mae's standing barefoot in the water as the horse she rode out on drinks from the creek.  The large animal's ears flicker to and fro, but for the most part he's content to refuel after the night's excursion without a fuss.  Further downstream, Sean waters the other magnificent beast seemingly lost in thought.

"Never did have a chance to ask why you's doin' this," he says when he catches Bonnie’s curious gaze, an attempt at light conversation over their first real rest since this time the previous day.

It feels good to stop running.

Bonnie just smiles and says, "Mickey'd've done you in given the chance.  Reckon that's reason enough."

Sean makes his way along the bank, nudging the reluctant horse to follow alongside him, until he reaches Bonnie.  With the sun shining and the partial cover of the nearby tree line, it almost feels _safe_ here.  For a moment he entertains the idea that they aren't fugitives in a foreign land, but instead explorers on a great adventure.

The beauty doesn't last.

"You'll never be able to go back there, you know."

"So I hear," she says in jest and she gives the horse a rough pat.  He whinnies in response and splashes water up the front of Bonnie's frock with his heavy steps.

Once upon a time Bonnie and Sean were close; that they've since been reduced to strangers makes Sean nervous to be alone with her.  He's certain Bonnie can sense his unease, but she carries on as though nothing has changed.  At the moment her priority is survival - from the wilderness and the law alike - but Sean can’t let it go.

The mounting guilt of their diminished history eats away at him from the inside.  If he's going to accept Bonnie's decision to throw her life on the railroad away for _this_ , he knows he has to clear the air about a couple of things.

Especially as they ride straight for Arapaho territory.

"Hey," he says, refocusing Bonnie's wandering mind.  "I owe you an explanation—"

"Nonsense," Bonnie assures, splashing her way to the shoreline with the horse's reins in hand.  She takes a heavy seat on the bank before working her boots on.  "I's made up my mind, same as you.  No good'll come from entertainin' could'ves an' would'ves now."

"You don't understand," Sean presses, taking a seat beside her.  "Last time we so much as said a word to one another, I was cruel.  You need to know that was never me intent, but that doctor friend of yours—"

"Doctor Van der Meulen?"

It's been a long time since anyone's brought up that name and the concern flickers like a dying flame across her eyes.  How long has she been trying to suppress those memories?  Sean can't be certain, but he knows she's not too eager to talk about it.  Still, he forges ahead: "He asked me to see you the night of the forty-mile celebration."

A short laugh escapes Bonnie as her concern deflates.  "I know that, Sean.  _You_ told me."

"No," he insists, this time with more urgency than before.  "He took part in a tarrin' an' featherin' that night an' he asked me to distract you, so you wouldn't know.  But when you insisted on stayin' in Durant with 'im, he came to me again an' told me to put some distance between us.  Said I'd only hurt you, but I's afraid it only hurt you more—"

"That doesn't make a lick of sense," Bonnie interrupts.  "It was Doctor Van der Meulen insisted on stayin', not me...  T’was only when you's stopped comin' 'round that I thought better of movin' on."

It's only while the words are leaving her lips that Sean realises that Doctor Van der Meulen had set up everything.  He fabricated Ruth's affections in order to distract Sean from Bonnie, but Ruth Cole had never seen Sean as anything more than a friend, if she'd ever gone so far.  He'd run wild with just that little spark of hope and in the process, his relationships with Ruth, Bonnie _and_ Mickey fell apart.

He'd almost lost his life on account of a _lie_.

But the ugly truth isn't the only truth that comes to light.  Bonnie looks Sean in the face, eyes full of concern and skepticism, and asks, "How much of our friendship was _him_ , Sean?"

While it’s true that Doctor Van der Meulen had been allowed to drive a wedge between them by steering Sean towards Ruth, when Sean had asked Bonnie Mae to dance on the night of the forty-mile celebration, that was _real_.  And Bonnie, despite the way Sean brushed her off in his pursuit of Ruth, never once gave up on what they shared that night - not once.

Sean had at once suspected that Bonnie found comfort in Mickey's arms after their separation, given all the time they spent together upon her return to Hell on Wheels, but her coming to Sean and offering to be his escape told a very different story.

For better or worse, Bonnie stuck by him.

 _That_ had nothing to do with Doctor Van der Meulen's manipulation and everything to do with Bonnie Mae's good faith.  Regardless of her reasons, she chose Sean.  In his haste to make things right by her, he fishes through his vest pocket for the only personal artifact left to his name.

"Here," Sean insists as he takes Bonnie's hand and slips his Claddagh ring onto her finger.  "I want you to wear this for _me_ , even if only 'til we reach the coast."


	2. Chapter 2

About half-way through Wyoming territory, Bonnie Mae and Sean happened upon their first travellers.

An unfriendly bunch coming out of California, they had a sick baby girl in their company and no medicine with which to help her.  Sean bartered the sheets and a pint of medicine in exchange for bacon, hardtack and cornmeal.  The addition of Bonnie's personal oversight bought them a side of ground coffee.

It took three days to see any improvement in the babe and, for a time, Bonnie began to lose hope.  Three days was a long time to be anchored given the urgency of their mission, but she didn’t argue.  It was with bated breath that the family waited, and waited, and waited until finally the symptoms lessened and the caravan was once again fit for travel.

At the end of the day, it wasn't a bad deal at all.

"Them folks could’ve administered the medicine," Bonnie complains as Sean prepares a small fire for the night.

The flint takes a while to catch given the dampness of the kindling this close to the stream, so Bonnie goes about unburdening the tethered horses in the last of the fading daylight.  Once a spark takes, though, Sean sits back on his heels with evident relief.  "I's sick'a that pine tea, Bonnie.  We needed this."

Bonnie accompanies Sean in the dim firelight and relieves herself of their recently acquired goods.  "Don't need scurvy this far into the middle o' nowhere."

He knows she's right, but he's sick of forging for grouse berries and pine nuts like a squirrel.

The supply they'd taken from the kitchen didn't last nearly as long as they had hoped and, in their effort to avoid settlements at least until Nevada, the situation became... dire.  Regardless of the price, a little bit of _real_ sustenance is more than worth it and Bonnie can't argue with that.

"Just don't eat it all the first day."

"Aye," he says, giving her shoulder a friendly pat.  "I'll be careful, _ma_."

Soon the dreadful darkness consumes everything in existence outside of their little ring of light and they become the only two people alive.  Somewhere along the way they lost track of the time that had passed since their escape, but they have yet to be caught—it’s a fine start.

"Sometimes it don't seem real," Bonnie says, looking into the fire's center.  "Thinkin' any minute, you might just wake up an' find it's all a bad dream..."

Sean reaches out for Bonnie's hand - the hand that dons his ring - but he doesn't meet her curious gaze.  "Get some sleep, Bonnie.  You ain't had a proper rest since... well, since 'fore we met them folks on the trail."  She gives a reassuring squeeze of his hand in response, but otherwise says nothing.

It takes but a minute for Sean to drape the quilt around her shoulders, by which point she can no longer argue she’s drowsy.

But Bonnie doesn't really sleep - so far as she can tell, anyway - even if the rustling of Sean's indiscrete exit doesn't jostle her the way it should.  Instead, she pulls the quilt a little tighter around herself in lieu of his warmth, feeling his absence much more than comprehending it.

The bush is completely silent save for the loud cackling fire and the distant babbling stream, so despite her best effort to stay alert this far into Arapaho country, she’s lulled right into a state of surreality.

Before she knows it she's not stranded in the Wyoming wilderness, but cozy by the fire in the family's blackhouse in Scotland.

In her disillusion, Bonnie inhales the sweet aroma of morning bacon and her stomach rumbles in delight.  When her father comes in from the fields, she doesn't even open her eyes; the weight of his footsteps, solid against the packed dirt floor, give him away and she smiles to herself.

He reaches out to touch Bonnie's hand, to rouse her for breakfast, and the suddenness and intensity of the pain outweighs its mystery.

Bonnie's eyes flutter open to reveal a stranger hovering over her, who is neither her father nor her traveling companion.  He's tan and his long, dark hair is pulled back from his face in a style that she is unfamiliar with.  Somehow, he seems just as surprised by her awakening as she is to awaken to him.

Her eyes flicker from his face to his hands, one of which wields a boning knife, and she realises that he's already begun to shave away the skin on her left hand.  Bonnie hollers then, more out of shock and distress than pain, and she grapples with the stranger for the knife.

It's only once he pins her on her back that he once again goes for her hand, never daring to mar her face or slit her throat.  That’s when she realises he's not trying to kill her—he just wants the ring.

Bonnie is mid-struggle when the man is struck over the head from behind, a blow that staggers him.

"Get off’a her!" Sean shouts, surely about to question her well-being once her attacker slumps to the ground.  Despite his daze, however, the man scampers off out of the fire’s light and disappears into the dark.  "Hey, wait—!"

He moves to give chase, but Bonnie doesn’t let him.  "Sean—"

"He attacked you," Sean insists, shaking in a mixture of fear and adrenaline before the temporary bubble of courage pops.  He hasn't even got a weapon to defend himself.  "He knows we're here, he—"

"I need you _here_."  
  
And as if to emphasize her point, Bonnie shifts her hand into the firelight - it's bloody and mangled and misshapen as a result of the scuffle.  While the Claddagh ring Sean gave her is present at the base of the ring finger, the majority of the finger itself is gone.  For a long minute time stands still and they assess the severity of the injury in stark silence.  
  
Alarming panic alights Sean’s terrified blue eyes, so Bonnie gropes her way down his arm until she finds his hand.  "It's not so bad," she assures.  "Just take a deep breath an' do as I say."  
  
"A'right," he agrees, but he’s having trouble even looking at the stump.  
  
"The hem of my chemise," Bonnie instructs.  "Tear off some of that there for now."  
  
Sean does as she says, helping her to wrap the fabric like a bandage around the stump of the finger with shaking hands.  It's not easy, but Bonnie does what she can to help out with her good hand and together they're able to tie it off.  The thin fabric bleeds through almost immediately, but that hardly seems a cause for concern now that they’ve got some pressure on it.  
  
More than anything, the de-escalation of the situation leaves Bonnie feeling exhausted and drowsy.  She carefully settles back against her pack, but reaches for Sean's hand with her bloody one.  "Stay with me."  
  
"I's right 'ere, Bonnie.  I promise."


End file.
